


Aziraphale, an Angel Who Did Not Fall....

by Barefoot On The Moon (BarefootWanderer)



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Fallen Angel Aziraphale (Good Omens), Heaven is Terrible (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, Injury Recovery, M/M, Major Character Injury, Rating May Change, Romance, Supportive Crowley (Good Omens), a pool of boiling sulfur, cw: gabriel, hand-wavy celestial magic, hand-wavy physics, just a lot of love, what even is good dialogue?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-05
Updated: 2020-03-18
Packaged: 2021-02-26 00:41:47
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 10,340
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21684706
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BarefootWanderer/pseuds/Barefoot%20On%20The%20Moon
Summary: ….So much as stride blithely out a window
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 53
Kudos: 270
Collections: Most Favs





	1. Chapter 1

The summons in the cream-colored envelope was distressingly vague, but consequences for ignoring were well understood. Aziraphale sighed as he read the note again and turned his head to watch pedestrians from the window of the stopped bus where he sat. He wondered if he should have told Crowley about his plans for the day. Initially he had decided to share the information after his meeting, to stop Crowley from doing anything foolish like storming up to Heaven and demanding that the Metatron tell him what everyone was up to.  


Crowley had been, justifiably, nervous for the past month or so. Treason against the cosmic order will do that to a person, Aziraphale had figured. He himself was feeling a bit adrift, finding himself suddenly without purpose or indeed a plan for what to do next. The summons had been comforting in that small way- a return to something that felt like the old routine.  


Which is why he hadn’t told Crowley. What was happening between them was...well. It was nothing like the old routine. There was more touching, for instance. And, as of about fifteen days ago, a great deal more nudity. Aziraphale was enjoying that bit. He was enjoying all of it, really, and he was unwilling to jeopardize this newfound happiness by allowing Crowley to confront Heaven. Because the demon certainly would have, had Aziraphale told him about the envelope.  


But Aziraphale hadn’t.  


He had, instead, gotten on the bus to go back to the head office without even leaving a note. It had not, until that very moment, occurred to him that such a course of action might perhaps have been unwise. He was a bit persona non grata, after all. Heaven hardly considered him an asset, at this point. It was possible, in fact, that they considered him...disposable.  


Aziraphale swallowed hard. There was nothing for it. He would go in there, make himself clear, leave, and never look back. He had someone waiting for him on earth, after all.  


He stood, squared his shoulders, and disembarked. 

#  *****

“Aziraphale,” began Gabriel in the type of voice that meant I hope we can be friends, for your sake, but honestly it’s no skin off my nose. “How are you? Long time no see! It’s been, what...”  


“Twenty six days.” Aziraphale could have kicked himself for the helpful tone in his voice.  


Gabriel nodded, the smile on his face remaining in place through what was obviously a valiant effort of will. “Of course.”  


“Since you attempted to execute me.”  


“Yes.”  


“And, I might add, failed.”  


The smile was losing ground now. “Ah. About that-”  


“I was under the impression,” Aziraphale continued, some bone-deep animal instinct keeping his tone polite. “That I had earned a measure of reprieve. A period of sabbatical, if you will.”  


He meant to carry on, but Gabriel, with the smooth inevitability of a freight train, interrupted. “It has come to the attention of Heaven,” he said, too loudly “that you have been keeping company with a demon.”  


“Has it?” He kept his voice as level as he could, trying to stave off panic. His companionship with Crowley was hardly a secret anymore. They hadn’t been hiding, of late. They had, in fact, been stepping out. Obviously. Brazenly, one might even say. This stepping out had, on more than one occasion, been followed by stepping in- to the book shop, to Crowley’s flat, to a convenient alley, to the shelter of a scandalized willow tree, to an improbably located broom closet-  


“Yes,” sighed Gabriel, as if Aziraphale were being deliberately obtuse (he was). “Furthermore, it seems that this ...association, if you like, has given way to a level of ….intimacy-”  


“Carnality,” supplied Sandalphon, looking at Aziraphale as if he were something sticky that Sandalphon had managed to extract from his own nose after a long struggle. Aziraphale suppressed a shudder and resolved to wash every inch of his person as soon as possible.  


Uriel snorted indelicately. Gabriel cleared his throat. “Indeed. Carnality.” He chewed delicately around the word and spat it out like a piece of gristle. “Obviously this is unacceptable.”  


“What are the consequences?”  


Gabriel blinked at him. “What?”  


“What are the consequences?” Aziraphale asked again. “You’ve caught me in the act-” Uriel coughed. “-as it were. What happens next?”  


Gabriel opened his mouth, then closed it again. He stared at Aziraphale for a full minute, and Aziraphale did his level best not to wilt. He stood straight and willed himself to meet Gabriel’s eyes. It was over. Finished. He and Crowley had won the right to live as they pleased, and he would not see that taken from him, crushed in its infancy, before he even properly knew what it meant.  


“Well, we expected you to deny the charges....”  


“Am I being accused of a crime? I rather thought that particular ship had sailed.”  


“‘Accused’ does not describe the situation. You are being sentenced,” Michael cut in, stepping forward so that she was shoulder-to-shoulder with Gabriel. “This depravity cannot be permitted to continue.”  


Aziraphale found it in himself to bluster; “I beg your pardon-” before Gabriel raised a placating hand.  


“Now, Michael, we were working our way up to that. Tactfully.” He turned to Aziraphale. “But she’s right, of course. It has to stop.”  


“I won’t be told-”  


“As it stands, the demon is out of our jurisdiction. And of course, it is your celestial being that is in danger.” Gabriel looked at him appraisingly. “You won’t come out of this unscathed, Aziraphale. But the amount of damage is up to you. You’re clever, intelligent, but hardly...worldly, are you, Aziraphale? We would understand if you were...taken in, tricked. Coerced, even. Tempted? You wouldn’t be the first.”  


Aziraphale found himself gaping like a very expensive tropical fish rudely extracted from its heated tank and forced to confront both the sterile, recirculated air of a high-end plastic surgery establishment and the fact of its own mortality.  


“Perhaps the wily serpent lied to you. Perhaps he said one thing and did another? Put you in a compromising position. Gosh, he might even have threatened you before forcing you to engage in sins of the flesh-”  


At which point Aziraphale lost his temper. “Are you insinuating...are you daring to suggest that – that I should implicate Crowley in order to preserve my own reputation? Is that the level to which you imagine I would stoop?”  


Gabriel made as if to answer but Aziraphale, surprising them both, cut him off. “No, Gabriel, I believe you’ve made yourself quite clear. I see no reason to subject myself to any more of this...baloney! I will not stand here and listen politely while you insult me and disparage my- my-” Aziraphale searched desperately for a word. He hated “boyfriend”- too casual. “Partner” was charming, but a touch ambiguous. “Lover” felt tawdry, which...  


Well.  


“My lover.”  


Uriel retched as Aziraphale turned to leave.  


“Aziraphale,” said Gabriel sternly. “If you leave, I cannot guarantee your safety.”  


“From Hell?” Aziraphale scoffed. “I hardly think that’s a concern anymore.”  


“Principality,” barked Michael. “Do you honestly believe that Heaven’s sole Earthly Representative is permitted to conduct himself in such a way? Did you imagine this would continue indefinitely? Heaven will put a stop to it.”  


Aziraphale turned. “Am I to be punished, then? For associating with him?”  


“Yes,” Michael responded.  


“And is he in danger, as long as he continues to...conduct himself as he has been, with Heaven’s Earthly Representative?”  


“Yes.”  


“Then I wish to tender my resignation.”  


“What?” said Gabriel blankly.  


“I find that I am no longer able to conduct myself according to requirements of my post, and I wish to resign.”  


“You wish to...return to Heaven?” hazarded Michael.  


“Hardly. I wish to take my leave. Permanently.” Aziraphale began to walk again.  


“But that simply isn’t done!” cried Michael. “No one has ever left Heaven of their own accord! Wh-”  


“Oh, I hardly think that’s the case.” Aziraphale’s voice was mild. He was terrified, palms sweating, knees shaking, but he wanted to do Crowley proud. He did his best to sound amused. “It’s been some time, of course. But I do know one defector very well.”  


Aziraphale decided that he had reached the end of the room. He turned to look at his former comrades. He could not recall ever having been this afraid before, yet somehow he was struggling to swallow the manic grin which threatened to split his face in half. He could see the moment when the four realized that there was no longer any glass in the window at his back.  


“Thank you for the opportunity. Godspeed.”  


Aziraphale turned his back to Heaven.


	2. Chapter 2

Crowley was having a quiet afternoon in when, for all intents and purposes, a meteor exploded over London.  


That was starling in and of itself- no meteor had been anticipated by any authority Crowley knew of, and none of them seemed to know what to do next. What was even more alarming was the massive burst of supernatural energy that had come from the explosion. What pushed Crowley out of surprise and firmly into worry was that the blast felt like Aziraphale. What caused him to jump out of his seat and start running was the impact on the roof of his apartment building.  


He had forgotten that earlier in the morning, in a fit of pique over climate change and the subsequent danger to sea life, he had disabled exactly one third of the buttons in the elevator. This would not generally be an inconvenience to him. Generally.  


Crowley, after great tribulation and cursing most of Britain and portions of Ireland, reached the exit to the roof and pushed the door open. He had been unaware, prior to that moment, that his building featured a rooftop swimming pool. He had been further uninformed as to the contents of said pool, and was rapidly becoming informed via all senses (primarily olfactory) that they were composed largely of boiling sulfur. He suspected that one or both of these circumstances had not been the case before the last several minutes.  


He knew what this was- the smell, the image in front of him, the beacon of pain and fear and devastating, strangling loss. Crowley had seen this before, had lived it, and part of him knew that he had to run. This was not a safe place, not a place that was wholesome or pleasant or salubrious, but-  


_But_  


The overwhelming sense of _Aziraphale_ from not even twenty minutes earlier could have only a limited number of explanations.  


Crowley fought to master the panic that threatened to choke him, willed his limbs and spine to carry him forward into the miasma. His fear was useless to him here, if Aziraphale was in that pool. Crowley remembered the first thoughts to cross his mind when he’d been cast out. He’d been angry, and afraid, and in overwhelming pain. The ache of impact, absence, immolation had brought him low, had rendered him nearly catatonic. Bile rose in his throat as he thought of his angel feeling all that.  


He coughed as he struggled not to retch, and approached the edge of the pool. The heat was, appropriately, hellish. He stared through the smoke, eyes burning, at the boiling liquid and searched desperately for signs of life.  


“Aziraphale?” He scanned the pool again. Falling was rarely, if ever, fatal- that would defeat the purpose- but whoever had been cast out of Heaven just now would be disoriented and in pain. Even if it was not his angel (please, anyone, let it not be him), Crowley couldn’t bring himself to turn away. He wanted to run, yes, wanted to get out of there as fast as possible and find safety and also scotch, but he couldn’t in good conscience leave some being here to be found by Hell. He would have killed, maimed, extorted to have a friendly face nearby after his Fall.  


There was a splash and a gurgled cry. Crowley rushed forward toward the edge of the pool, trying to pinpoint the source. He saw movement again and ran along the edge until he was as close as he could be. He waited, breathless (due to inattention), for another sign of life.  


A hand broke the surface and disappeared again.  


“Come this way!” Crowley called. It didn’t matter who was in the pool- he found himself taking pity on this newly-minted demon. “Follow my voice! I’ll get you out!”  


The figure resurfaced gradually, obviously struggling and in pain. Crowley wasn’t sure that they could see or hear him, but he kept calling anyway.  


“That’s good, it’s just a bit further! Try and get your feet under you! It’s-”  


“Crowley!”  


It was all Crowley could do not to collapse against the concrete of the roof. He knew that voice, distorted as it was by pain and fear. “Angel! I’m here, you’re safe, follow my voice!”  


Gradually, Aziraphale struggled his way to the edge of the pool where Crowley was. He would drop below the surface for minutes at a time, only to resurface coughing and spluttering. Once or twice he yelled, wordlessly, again unable to form any coherent sound.  


When he finally, finally surfaced within reach, Crowley stretched as far as he could, disregarding the burns the pool left on him, and tugged the one he loved back to dry land.  


They collapsed together on the roof, Aziraphale burned and filthy, naked and bleeding, Crowley doing everything in his power to keep his head on straight until they reached safety. He had the presence of mind to miracle them both into his own bathroom before rounding on Aziraphale.  


“For fuck’s sake, angel, what did you do? How in the name of every unholy thing did you manage to Fall? You? Of all people?” He set to work as he yelled, struggling to stave off panic. “How? HOW?”  


Aziraphale groaned at him, voice rough with pain and smoke and exhaustion. “I didn’t Fall,” he managed.  


“Could have fooled me!” raged Crowley. “The boiling sulfur was pretty obvious!”  


Aziraphale shook his head weakly. “Didn’t fall. Strode blithely out a window.”  


He fainted.

*****

Aziraphale found himself surfacing gradually, slowly becoming aware of light and sound and the smell of burning. The pain hit all at once. He cried out, which caused a whole host of new and unpleasant sensations.  


He cast about himself with hands and eyes and metaphysical senses, but his body struggled to process anything beyond the catastrophic damage to his skin. He caught movement and sound, and tried frantically to speak again, terrified by his own pain and vulnerability. There was a ghost of touch against his shoulder and he flinched away before he could register the pain he was sure would come.  


There was a voice, low and non-threatening, but Aziraphale could tell that it was nearby, close to his face. Something moved to block the light and he blinked. No other information seemed to be forthcoming, and he made the executive decision to try and wrestle his mind back under his control. He resisted his body’s urge to hyperventilate, understanding that this would cause more pain and tip him back into panic.  


He closed his eyes and reached out as best he could with his other senses. This space was familiar, but he couldn’t identify it yet. He realized that the voice was still speaking and focused on the sound. Someone was in this place with him. The person reeked of fear and anger, and Aziraphale recoiled. He could tell they weren’t moving, though, and he looked again, finding pain, sadness, confusion. There was no warmth here, no love, no peace to be had. There was no way this place was safe.  


Fighting to maintain his composure, Aziraphale tried again to move. He seemed to be lying, or reclining, unrestrained but in enough pain that he couldn’t possibly escape his captors. Whatever had happened physically, it seemed that his ethereal proprioception, his angelic- but no.  


That wasn’t right, was it?  


Aziraphale gasped. There was a hole in his chest, he realized- a gash, a chasm, a crater where divinity had been. He _remembered_. Remembered Heaven, remembered leaving. Remembered hoping that his dear one would be proud of him.  


The voice spoke louder, reacting to his sounds and abortive attempts at movement. Aziraphale could not gauge the tone yet, but could still feel overwhelming sorrow and pain emanating from whomever it was, and now, suddenly, hatred.  


He flinched, and wondered if he was in Hell.

*****

It was all Crowley could do not to throw himself across the bathroom and cling to Aziraphale once he regained consciousness. He did permit himself to hurry as he knelt next to the tub and started speaking. “I know, angel. I know it hurts. The water should help, but there’s nothing more to do-”  


Aziraphale groaned, trying to form words, his voice rendered useless through fear and pain, smoke and boiling sulfur. Crowley reached out to rest gentle fingers against his shoulder, but he flinched away immediately.  


“Sorry, angel. Sorry. I don’t know....” Aziraphale reacted to his voice, but not with any recognition. He looked terrified, pained, and there was nothing in his face that said he understood where he was or what had happened. He was blistered from his Fall, with patches of his hair gone and huge swathes of shiny red skin across his limbs and torso. Crowley knew that it must hurt, and hated that there was nothing more he could do than sit Aziraphale in cold water and wait for time to improve him.  


Crowley kept talking, hoping it would help Aziraphale calm down, but the (former) angel didn’t seem to recognize him. He did his best to place himself directly in Aziraphale’s field of vision, sure that the sulfur had damaged his eyes in some way. Aziraphale had settled down somewhat, but if Crowley could read his body language then he was still confused and hurting.  


He sighed. That was to be expected, he supposed. He spoke again as he watched Aziraphale try to get his metaphysical bearings. “You’re in my bathtub, angel. You’re safe here. I don’t know what happened, but I won’t let anyone hurt you.  


Aziraphale turned his face towards Crowley and flinched again. Crowley kept talking, trying to keep his voice calm and steady as his angel’s panic approached another crest. He watched as Aziraphale tried to sit up, only to make a small, deep sound of pain. He started to flail around the tub again, splashing water, and Crowley realized that he still didn’t know what was happening.  


He needed to calm Aziraphale, needed to make him understand that he wasn’t in any immediate danger, that the pain would pass more quickly if he moved less.  


Crowley didn’t know what to do. He was quickly losing his cool, watching the man he loved panic helplessly, naked and wounded in a bathtub. He knew the feeling, remembered with aching clarity the feeling of confusion and abandonment that came with his Fall. The physical pain had been all-encompassing, and when it had seemed to him that things could not get any worse, he had realized he no longer felt a connection to the Divine.  


That was going to be the hardest part for Aziraphale. His angel wanted so badly to _belong_ , to _know_ who he was and what he was supposed to do. Forced retirement had weighed heavily on him these last few weeks, despite the newfound joy at the life he was building with Crowley.  


Crowley, who had Fallen well before the two of them had met. Who had tempted his angel, led him down a primrose path to iniquity and treason. Crowley, who was now the reason Aziraphale was delirious and moaning, outcast without understanding that yet.  


He swore. Loudly. Vehemently. He spat venom and invectives with everything he had, cursing above and below, the Heavenly Host and the Legion, the firmament and the pit and the fucking bathtub that was now housing water and something no longer holy. He screamed, wordlessly. Wept. He was beyond begging, at this point, beyond asking God for favor or aid or mercy. If there was none given to his angel, why would there ever be any for him?  


He noticed that Aziraphale had fallen silent. He was frozen, trembling, one hand gripping the edge of the tub with white-knuckled determination.  


Crowley sobbed out a sigh. He had scared his angel, his lover, who was confused and hurt already. He dropped to his knees again and pried Aziraphale’s fingers from the edge of the tub. His angel put up a token resistance, but gave in when Crowley kept up pulling insistently on his hand.  


He leaned forward and pressed Aziraphale’s hand to his cheek, held it there until his angel grasped what was happening. He let his arm fall, leaving Aziraphale’s fingers trembling against his skin.  


Aziraphale hesitated, then brushed the very tips of his fingers gently across Crowley’s cheek and back toward the hinge of his jaw. Crowley waited breathlessly, leaning into the touch as much as he dared. He watched Aziraphale’s face as his fingers found Crowley’s ear, tracing up and forward to the arm of his sunglasses. He exhaled as Aziraphale’s fingers picked up speed, watched the hope cracking across his face when his hand found the lenses and traced the bridge of Crowley’s nose to his mouth. Crowley reached up when the hand paused there, caught the wrist gently, and pressed a kiss to Aziraphale’s palm.  


The tension left his angel’s shoulders immediately. Crowley huffed out a weak, relieved laugh as a tiny, nervous smile found Aziraphale’s face.  


He tried to speak again, hand still pressed to Crowley’s mouth, but Crowley shook his head. “Not yet, angel. Give it a couple days. You’ve got burns down your throat, trust me.”

*****

Aziraphale allowed himself to wilt slightly in what he assumed was Crowley’s bathtub. He was safe. _Crowley_ would _keep_ him safe, Aziraphale knew that much. He had time, and with time came pain.  


He did his best to take an internal assessment of his body. Much of him ached, and what didn’t ache stung, or burned. His skin and muscles were a single, cohesive mass of pain. He still had all his limbs, which was promising, but he didn’t dare check his wings yet. Not while everything still hurt. Not while he couldn’t see properly. He could make out shapes, could tell light from darkness, but anything more than that was beyond him for the moment. Colors were...wrong, somehow. He wondered if his eyes had been permanently affected. He realized he wasn’t certain why Crowley covered his eyes so frequently. He had assumed that it was to hide them from civilians, but he didn’t know whether Crowley’s vision had been altered in his Fall. Somehow, it had never occurred to him to ask.  


Crowley was speaking again, but Aziraphale couldn’t make out the words. He picked out a few elongated sibilants, he thought, but he had no way of being sure. The rhythm of it was soothing, though, familiar. So was Crowley’s hand in his, even when it moved to press gently against his sternum as the other cupped the back of his head, guiding him backward into the tub again.  


Crowley’s hands were gone from him, but Aziraphale could hear him speaking as he registered another, staticky noise. He could feel this one in his gut, his lungs, and somehow, against his skin. He felt cooler, suddenly. Crowley was filling the tub, he realized, bathing him in cool water to soothe his burns. There was the hint of a pleasant smell, too, something that fought its way past the smell of sulfur and cooking meat that lingered in his nose.  


He closed his eyes, exhausted, trusting the one he loved to keep him safe and whole.


	3. Chapter 3

When Aziraphale began to prune and shiver, Crowley drained the tub and miracled him dry. He slathered his angel in aloe as best he could, by hand. It felt important somehow to be touching Aziraphale, that should he wake he would find hands pressed lovingly and gently against his skin, would know that Crowley was physically present with him, easing his pain in this very human way. He bundled Aziraphale into white cotton pajamas, loose and with a button front on the top.  


The white pajamas and the deep gray sheets made Aziraphale look strange and sickly when Crowley laid him on the bed. What portions of his skin were visible at the edges of his clothing had red shiny patches and stark, fat blisters. A few, near his joints and on his hands, had cracked already and were oozing. Crowley bandaged them the human way, as well, with gauze and ointment and medical tape, with furrowed brows and a breath held on the exhale, with sorrow and something like hope.  


Crowley had no skill to heal. It wasn’t a gift often found in hell. He could cause flesh to rejoin itself over an open wound, but the blood would still flow where the muscle beneath had rent. He could convince bones that they were straight again, and in their proper places, and even splint them afterward, with cloth and wood and murmured apologies, but the break would remain.  


He knew several ways, when you got down to it, to manhandle a living body into sticking it out until the cavalry arrived.  


More often than not, the cavalry had been Aziraphale.  


Crowley hated, with everything he was, that there was nothing more he could do to help. He wanted to rage, to hit things and set things alight, but the object of his acrimony was nigh-unassailable, and Crowley knew that direct action at this point in time was nothing more than a death sentence, one more thing standing in between him and happiness with Aziraphale.  


Crowley decided that one of the chairs from Aziraphale’s shop now sat next to the bed, and that there were two mugs of tea on the nightstand. He arranged himself in the ancient armchair and placed his hand over one of Aziraphale’s. His angel was sleeping, or unconscious from the pain, and Crowley exhaled.  


There was no one to see him here, no one that he had to impress, and Aziraphale was beyond comforting or frightening. Crowley screamed.  


Just once. He made a sound beyond human hearing, for as long as he could. He screamed until all the milk in the building curdled, until several eggs in kitchens below his found themselves hatching small, alarmed lizards, until he ran out of breath and decided _“fuck it, who even needs lungs?”_ and kept screaming anyway.  


There were no words in him. He stopped screaming and wept. He was barely a person, at this point. He was a mass of fear and indignant rage. He was a ball of pain and anger and hatred shoved into a man-shaped body and made to live on the earth. He knew that if someone were to come by and cut him open, he wouldn’t bleed, or smoke, or leak ichor or unholy fluids. He would seep. Every ounce of vile feeling constrained beneath his flesh would ooze and extrude and pollute the world he walked in. He would be an oil spill of pain- sticky and slippery and inescapable.  


Crowley, Serpent of Eden, Tempter, Architect of Original Sin, cried himself to sleep in a battered armchair.

*****

When Crowley startled back to wakefulness, it was night. A sickly moon hovered outside his window and the city moved slowly, in the way cities only do when it is so early in the morning partygoers can still construe it as late at night. Something must have woken him. 

A moment later, Aziraphale groaned wordlessly and writhed against the bed. Crowley moved his hand up to his angel’s forehead to try and soothe him- the less noise Aziraphale made right now, Crowley knew, the easier it would be to recover use of his voice. 

“Hush, angel,” he murmured. “It’s over now. You’re free of them. You’re home with me. It’s all right now.” But Aziraphale whimpered in fear and shook his head as if trying to break free of Crowley’s touch. 

Crowley fished his free hand about the bed for one of Aziraphale’s, and interlaced their fingers gently. “It’s just me here, love,” he said, voice still pitched low and calm. “Nothing to fear now. Just you and me in my bedroom, yeah?”

Aziraphale moaned again and Crowley, doing the only thing that occurred to him, began to sing. He started with things he had sung to Warlock in their time together, and when he had exhausted that well, he kept going. He sang pop songs, love songs, advertising jingles. He worked his way through crooners and traditional ballads and folk songs ranging from cautionary to bawdy. He reached back further in time, to something older, sang children’s ditties in dead languages and counting rhymes to number animals long extinct. He sang hymns to dead gods, the scraps of holiness in the words so weak they felt like nothing more than soap bubbles popping on his tongue. He kept going till the sun came up, humming wordlessly the types of tunes that mothers sang to infants, lovers sang to their beloveds, artists sang of muses, and each generation sang for their dead ancestors. He resurrected songs that had not been given voice in millennia, willing himself to remember them, to shake the dust and ash off of their melodies, and willing them to bring his angel home.

Aziraphale calmed as the sun rose. Crowley wasn’t sure if it was the light that helped or if he had simply exhausted himself by thrashing against the bed for hours. He sipped the tea he had set aside earlier, cold by now but still soothing to his abused throat. He settled back into his chair and kept vigil again, one hand over Aziraphale’s, and waited.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, the chapter count went up. This got away from me a bit. I can probably finish it in five, but it might end up being six. I apologize in advance.


	4. Chapter 4

Aziraphale opened his eyes and closed them again almost immediately. The light was more than he could handle. The first thing he registered was pain- pervasive, distracting, but no longer so overwhelming that it was all he knew. He was in a bed, clothed, as far as he could tell, but not in his usual ensemble. His body had kept breathing while he slept, and his heart beat in a rhythm that was somehow not the one he had grown to know.  


There was a hand laid across one of his- Crowley's he thought, and there was...  


Nothing  


In his chest, his stomach, where he had kept the grace with which his creator had imbued him.  
He had expected pain, blood even, the sensation of tearing. He had anticipated, and chosen with clear, bright eyes, to remember the moment wherein the Almighty would descend with some kind of celestial rasp and scrape the holiness out of him like filth from beneath an abcessed tooth.  


He was not prepared for this. There was no void in him, no hollow, nothing settled beneath his skin to scream about the loss until the world ended successfully.  
Aziraphale had known grace, and now he didn’t.  


It was simple, transactional, and somehow _so much worse_.  


He groaned, trying to give voice to his grief, and found himself coughing instead. His lungs burned, his tongue was dry and heavy, his throat felt as if someone had raked their fingernails over it again and again.  


He heard movement to his left, and then felt a cool hand against his cheek. “Hush, angel. Don’t talk yet. Have some tea first.”  


A mug was guided to his mouth, and Crolwey’s hand supported his head as he sipped gingerly at the drink. It was warm and herbal- willow and slippery elm, he thought, sharp and inexpertly brewed with clover honey. It was the best thing he’d ever tasted.  


He murmured wordless appreciation as Crowley took the mug away and turned his head until his lover’s hand once again cupped his cheek. Crowley’s skin was dry and wonderfully cool against the stinging heat that sizzled just beneath his skin.  


“Any better?” came the question.  


Aziraphale swallowed experimentally and found that it hurt less than he had expected. “I-” his voice broke and failed him, but he took a breath (and oh, that hurt more than it should) and started again. “A bit,” he croaked.  


He could feel and hear the sweet, relieved huff of Crowley’s breath. “You can hear me.”  


He nodded. “You sound...muffled, somehow?” His voice was weak and harsh in his own ears. “And there’s a ringing sound.” Aziraphale felt a smile try to form between his teeth. “But yes. I can hear you.”  


Crowley squeezed one of his hands gently. “Can you open your eyes for me, angel?”  


Aziraphale hesitated, then shook his head. “No. The light- It's too much.”  


He heard Crowley snap his fingers and heard the curtains close, and with that minor miracle he noticed a smell.  


It was familiar, half-remembered as if from early childhood, though Aziraphale had never been a child in any recognizable way. He knew the smell, warm and sweet and nameless, and for some reason couldn’t help but associate it with Crowley. The smell was crisp toast and crème brulee and French onion soup.  


“Do that again,” he rasped.  


“What, the curtains?” said Crowley. “Alright-”  


“No, the miracle. Do a miracle,” said Aziraphale urgently.  


“Oh, um. Alright. I’ll just-” he snapped again, and Aziraphale could smell that his tea had been heated. But there again, lurking behind the herbs and honey was the toasting-marshmallow scent of the miracle.  


Crowley had always, to Aziraphale’s memory, smelled of burning. The specifics of it varied between meetings, tracking against some nameless axis Aziraphale had not managed to map- Crowley would smell of brimstone or burning pitch, struck matches, snuffed candles, paper or pine or frankincense that had met it’s end in flame, but now....  


Now the acrid edge to Crowley’s smell, and the smell of Crowley’s magic, was gone, replaced with the delightful caramel scent of comfort. Crowley smelled like crisping pie crust and chestnuts on a hearth, the scorching scent of him suddenly toothless and unthreatening, reduced to a Maillard reaction in this moment.  


“You smell nice,” said Aziraphale, slightly confused.  


“I smell like Hell, angel. Always have. No changes there. It’s just your nose that’s different.”  


“Oh. What- what else is different?”  


“You’ll have to tell me, Aziraphale. You look the same- hurt obviously, but nothing that won’t heal with time. Not everyone who-” Crowley’s voice ground to a halt, and Aziraphale could hear him doing his best to regain control over it before he spoke again. “Who Fell- not everyone was marked, physically. So, no scales, or boils or rotting flesh that I can see. No lizards.”  


“Lizards? What-”  


“Long story. Point is, do you feel different? You know, beyond the second-degree burns covering your body.”  


Aziraphale paused before the moment of his waking came snapping back to him and a sob fought its way out of his throat. “Crowley, I- I can’t feel God anymore.”  


Crowley sighed heavily and Aziraphale felt him sit on the edge of the bed. They were close, but Crowley wasn’t touching him yet, whether afraid to cause him pain or trying to respect some perceived trauma, he wasn’t sure. He reached out slowly, laid a hand against Crowley’s leg, clutched and dug his fingers in as he moaned in fear. “How? Why?”  


“Yeah,” breathed Crowley helplessly. “Yeah, that’s....yeah.”  


Aziraphale brought a hand to his own chest, eyes still closed against the light. “It was here,” he gasped. “Right here, I could feel it all the time, that love, and now-”  


“Now you’re in the gutter with the rest of us.” There was no malice in Crowley’s voice. Sorrow, maybe, or resignation.  


“Looking at the stars?” gasped Aziraphale through his tears.  


“Yeah.”  


“It doesn’t hurt. Crowley, shouldn’t it hurt? It should hurt to lose something like that, to have something so precious torn from you. I should-”  


“Do you feel torn, Aziraphale?” cut in Crowley. Aziraphale could hear him trying to be gentle, knew that Crowley was fighting the urge to respond to Azirphale’s pain with bitter derision and anger, and loved him for it. “Do you feel like you’ve lost a precious thing?”  


“I know I have! It was there and now it isn’t-”  


“That’s not what I asked, love. How do you feel?”  


Aziraphale forced himself to take a breath as best he could, trying to steady himself and his body. “I feel...the same.” He frowned to himself. That couldn’t be right. Not after all that pain, not after the choice he’d made. Something must be different. It had to be.  


“No,” he amended. “I feel as though I’ve walked into a familiar room and someone has moved all the furniture. It’s all there, all the same, but...wrong. Off. Like....” he trailed off, quieting. He had a horrible, sinking feeling that he was going to look for meaning here and find none.  


“I thought it felt like everything had tilted forty-five degrees,” he heard Crowley sigh. “It was all still there, but I didn’t understand it any more. Still don’t, I think. I’m sorry, angel. I don’t- I don’t know-”  


Aziraphale squeezed his leg again. His voice came out smaller than he wanted it to. “I wanted it to hurt, Crowley. I don’t know why, it’s silly. I shouldn’t have, I know. But...”  


“You wanted it to hurt because then you know it meant something. You imagined there would be an ache in your chest to replace what you lost, so that you would know that it was real. You wanted to keep a hollow space it you, in the shape of that love, just in case it might be filled again. And instead they let you go so easily, not even granting you the courtesy of pain.” Crowley’s voice was low and gentle and ravaged with heartache.  


“Yes,” said Aziraphale- quiet, defeated, alone in his own skin for the first time since before time. “Didn’t I matter, up there? To them? Didn’t you? Aren’t we a loss? Shouldn’t there be a gap in the ranks, and empty seat at the table? Someone to miss us?”  


“Should there be?” echoed Crowley. “Yes. There should. Is there? I doubt it, angel. Always have. We weren’t lost. We were discarded.”  


“Crowley, that’s...”  


“Awful, Aziraphale. It’s awful and savage and cruel.”  


“You never told me.”  


“You never asked,” came the frank rejoinder. “Besides, I’m damned. A demon, a denizen of Hell. It’s unbecoming to complain.”  


“Oh dear. I’m afraid I shan’t be very good at this, then.”  


“Don’t be ridiculous, angel. There’s quite a lot of work in the ‘Mildly Affronted and Not-Quite-So-Mildly Irritated’ department. You’d fit right in. Probably even be promised opportunities for advancement.”  


Aziraphale would have blinked in confusion had his eyes been open. He settled for a frown instead. “Advancement? I wasn’t aware that Hell had such a ...robust...internal structure.”  


“Oh, they don’t. But promise people something that is just plausible enough but still out of reach and you get a nice field of low-level anxiety and resentment. Keeps the fires burning, so to speak.”

*****

Aziraphale’s voice gave out shortly after that, and Crowley spent half an hour spoon-feeding him weak soup and white rice. Around midday he stripped Aziraphale down and gently ran aloe over his skin again. Neither of them was sure if it would help, but Crowley knew that at this point both of them needed the physical touch more than anything. He wanted Aziraphale true and vital under his palms, gasping if he moved too quickly or giggling at a too-light caress, and his angel needed an anchor, needed grounding and comfort and a reminder of what was good in the world, what he hadn’t lost. 

When Crowley was finished, he helped Aziraphale dress and then left the room. 

He returned mere moments later, and Aziraphale heard him settle into the chair near the bed.  


“Tea, angel,” he murmured, taking Aziraphale’s hand and folding it around a mug. It was not Aziraphale’s mug- it was clunky, and knowing Crowley, probably quite tacky, but Aziraphale nodded his thanks and sipped it nonetheless. It was chamomile, sweetened with honey, and he made a face before he could stop himself.  


“I know, angel. But it’ll help. Probably.” Crowley paused for a beat, two, three. “Won’t make things worse,” he concluded.  


Aziraphale nodded woefully and took another sip. He heard paper rustle as Crowley readjusted himself in his chair and spoke. “I- uh... I’ve got a book here. If you want me to read.”  


Aziraphale cocked his head.  


“Out loud,” clarified Crowley. “I could read out loud. The book. To you. If-”  


Aziraphale nodded, trying not to smile too widely at the affection burbling in his chest.  


“Oh. Um. Right, then. It’s poetry. So, no plot to speak of. Figured it’d be easier.” He cleared his throat. “Um, Dickinson. American. I, uh... I like these.  


> We grow accustomed to the Dark-  
> 
> 
> When light is put away-”  
> 

Aziraphale allowed himself to drift, caught in a familiar rhythm with a familiar voice. He wasn’t sure how long Crowley read, but eventually the demon stopped and touched his hand.  


“You should sleep, angel. ’S getting late, yeah?”  


Aziraphale nodded. He was tired, in a way that was new to him. He heard Crowley stand, then shuffle toward the bed, and felt a gentle kiss pressed against his forehead. When Crowley stood, Aziraphale reached out and by sheer dumb luck caught the hem of the demon’s shirt.  


“Aziraphale? You alright?”  


“Stay,” he managed to rasp. “Please. I don’t-”  


“Hush, angel. You’ll hurt your throat. ‘Course I’ll stay.”  


Aziraphale heard him turn off the lamp, then circle the bed and strip out of his clothes. He felt Crowley’s weight on the bed, and realized that this was the opposite of their usual position. Crowley was stretched out to his right, sprawled across the pillow that had recently become Aziraphale’s.  


He found that he was too tired to care, despite the tiny warning signal this epiphany triggered in him. It could wait. He was safe for now. He was loved. Crowley pressed a gentle hand to his, and as their breathing gradually synchronized into sleep, Aziraphale decided that everything else could be confronted in the morning.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Peep that chapter count, y'all!


	5. Chapter 5

Aziraphale opened his eyes slowly, cautious of the light and the pain that it might bring. He was braced for physical discomfort, of course, but more so he was afraid that his world was going to look different. He was not prepared to give up reading, art, the lovely visual textures of hand-knit sweaters or old cobblestones.  


His eyes adjusted gradually, but they did adjust.  


And the first sight of his new world was Crowley, sleeping peacefully, gloriously exactly the same as Aziraphale knew him to be. He was curled on his side, facing Aziraphale, cast grey and soft in the half-light. There was a frown line between his eyes. There was saliva dry at the corner of his mouth. His hair was tousled beyond what seemed probable, and Aziraphale loved him fiercely with whatever pieces of his heart were left. He wasn’t sure he was supposed to have a heart any more, but he did, and in that moment it was full.  


If this was what he had fallen for, it was worth it. If, from here on out, he was to be allowed to wake next to Crowley, and to watch him sleep without fear in the light of each new morning, then the exchange had been fair.  


No measure of grace could mean more to him than this.  


He reached out slowly to smooth the frown line between his lover’s brows.  


Crowley stirred and grumbled, snuffling gently, before his eyes snapped open and he lurched almost upright.  


Aziraphale drew back, startled, as Crowley looked around the room, gasping, his eyes wild and his teeth bared in something close to panic.  


“What-? Who-?” he cast about himself, trying to find the danger he was sure lurked somewhere near.  


“It’s alright, love,” murmured Aziraphale. His voice was still harsh in his throat and to his ears, but it was there. “It’s just us here, now.”  


Crowley looked at him cautiously and then flopped back onto the bed, boneless. “Don’t do that to me, angel.”  


He turned in order to look at Aziraphale properly, a grin trying to creep across his face as the full weight of the morning hit him. “Hey you.”  


Aziraphale reached out to lay a gentle palm against his cheek and met his eyes. “Good morning, dearest.”  


He watched as Crowley lost the battle to keep his features under control all at once. Crowley smiled like joy was leaking out of him, wide and warm and unabashed, as if Aziraphale was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. “I was hoping I’d get to see those baby blues again today.”  


Aziraphale felt himself blushing, warmth growing under his already-overwarm skin. “Are they still blue, then? Not pitch black, or fiery, or full of teeth?”  


“Who the fuck do you know with eyes full of teeth, Aziraphale? No, they’re still yours. Only-” He frowned and readjusted his angle slightly.  


Aziraphale waited, and held his breath.  


“They’re a little different. Still blue, but...more? Less like water and more like...I dunno. I like em, though.”  


“Oh. Well I suppose that’s alright, then.”  


Crowley caught Aziraphale’s hand and kissed it. “You’re as lovely as ever, angel.”  


He pulled his hand back to his chest and frowned. “But that’s not right anymore, is it? I don’t think you can call me that, now.”  


“What, lovely?” asked Crowley. “I could try ‘lightly toasted,’ but that won’t be true much longer-”  


“No, Crowley.” Aziraphale took a breath. “ _Angel_. I can’t very well be that anymore, can I?”  


Crowley blinked at him in startled confusion. “Aziraphale, you’re fucking with me.”  


“I’m not.”  


“You must be fucking with me, an- Aziraphale. You can’t have thought I was- was _describing_ you? All this time? Like you were-”  


“Well, you do it to the humans!” protested Aziraphale. “You keep talking about ‘Book Girl,’ and whenever we go out to eat it’s always ‘Waiter Human’ or ‘Barista Human.’ You called the sommelier ‘Wine Human’ the other night, Crowley, honestly.”  


“Well ‘Sommelier Human’ is a mouthful after two full bottles, isn’t it?”  


“You could have used his name!”  


“Which was?”  


“Frank!”  


“That’s not the point, angel. _Aziraphale_. That’s not the point, cause that’s not why I call you that.”  


“Well then why do you call me that, if it’s not because of what I am? Was?”  


“It is what you are. You still are. Always have been. One little Fall couldn’t change that.” Aziraphale stared, and Crowley muttered something else under his breath.  


“What was that?”  


“Said I didn’t think you’d like ‘sweetheart.’” he repeated.  


“Are you telling me that it’s an _endearment_? All this time, you’ve been calling me a _pet name_?”  


“No,” said Crowley, in the tone of one who wanted to sound reasonable in the face of overwhelming evidence against him. “Just the last...two thousand years, or so?”  


Aziraphale gaped at him, then grinned in triumph. “You!” he jabbed a finger into Crowley’s face. “You are _sentimental_!”  


“Am not,” grumbled the demon.  


“Are too! You’re sentimental and- and _sweet!_ ” he crowed. “You’ve been taking care of me for three days! You’ve been hand-feeding me! You’ve been gentle, and kind, and caring!”  


Crowley groaned, and hid his face in his hands. “You’re killing me, angel. People’ll think I’ve gone soft if this gets out.”  


“Oh, you haven’t _gone_ soft, darling. You’ve _been_ soft for ages.”  


“Oh, stop it you.”  


“I shan’t,” countered Aziraphale. “There’s no need, not now that I’ve tamed a demon _and_ turned my back on Heaven.”  


“You think I’m tamed?”  


“I think that I have gentled the Serpent of Eden into lazy Sunday mornings and late nights in front of my hearth.”  


Aziraphale made to sit up, and then gasped in pain. Immediately, Crowley turned his face from the pillow where he’d been hiding and reached across the bed. “Angel?” he asked, palm hovering just above Aziraphale’s torso. “You alright?”  


Aziraphale tried again to sit, only to groan, propped half upright on his elbows, as pain rippled across his upper back and shoulders. The muscles ached sharply, and he could tell that the sudden movement had aggravated several of the blisters that had yet to heal. “Wings,” he managed through gritted teeth.  


“Did you break-” Crowley began, but Aziraphale shook his head.  


“No,” he gasped as he lurched forward, bent double from the pain. “No, they’re just sore. And...burnt.”  


“Yeah. Yeah, that’s....” Crowley shook his head and sat up, helpless in the face of his partner’s pain. “It’s fucking awful, isn’t it? Do you want to take them out?”  


“They’ll heal faster if I don’t.”  


Crowley, lost for words, grasped Aziraphale’s hand and nosed at his hair. “I hate this,” he muttered. “I hate watching you hurt. This shouldn’t have happened, not to you. You don’t deserve this.”  


Aziraphale turned his head to lean on Crowley’s shoulder. “Oh, but you forget I chose this, darling.” He hated the tremor in his voice. He hated that now, after everything, when he had at long last woken at dawn in Crowley’s bed, his arms, his heart, he couldn’t muster volume. He wanted to be strong and steady and brave for Crowley. He wanted to say this in a tone that brooked no argument. “It’s just us, now. We don’t have to be afraid anymore.”  


Crowley sat up and pulled away. “What do you mean, you chose this? No one _chooses_ this, it just happens.”  


“Heaven summoned me, Crowley. They told me they were going to hurt you, to hurt us. And they told me I would not be permitted to ‘continue my association’ with you. And I told them I wished to resign my post.”  


“That doesn’t make this your fault, Aziraphale. You couldn’t have known-”  


“ _Crowley_ ,” said Aziraphale sharply. “Please let me finish. They wanted me to speak against you, to say you’d harmed me. Forced me, even-” Crowley hissed in a breath, and Aziraphale patted his hand. “I put a stop to that nonsense immediately, of course. And they told me if I wanted to resign then I had the option to remain in Heaven.”  
He shook his head and took a breath. “I didn’t think they would let me leave, Crowley. And I may not have been thinking clearly, but all I wanted was for you to be proud of me.”  


Crowley frowned. “’Course I’m proud of you, angel. Always have been. Ever since Eden, you know that.”  
Aziraphale nodded. “I do, my dear, of course I do. So I thought of you. And I left.”  


Crowley blinked at him, uncomprehending. “You....left?”  


“Yes. Through a window. Just....stepped out, like it was nothing at all. And the next thing I remember clearly is your voice.”  


“You simply....sashayed out of Grace.”  


“Yes, I suppose I did.”  


“And then fell for lightyears onto my roof?”  


Aziraphale frowned. “I suppose that was unusually fortuitous, wasn’t it? Certainly not the outcome I expected.”  


Crowley threw himself back against the bed. “Unusually fortuitous for a swimming pool to manifest spontaneously as well, would you say?”  


“Did it really? How peculiar.”  


Crowley cocked an eyebrow. “As if you didn’t know that Someone has a sense of humor. Admittedly, one that includes heinous violence and, occasionally, genocide, but still...”  


He turned to Aziraphale, expecting to get a rise out of him with casual blasphemy, but the other was chewing his lip pensively. “Angel? You alright?”  


“Hm? Yes. I was reading last week-”  


“Goodness, really?”  


Azirphale chose to ignore the heckling. “Yes, it was quite modernist- a ‘blog,’ I believe it was called.”  


Crowley snorted.  


“Or something like that. Regardless, I was making an effort to acquaint myself with some modern slang terms and- please correct me if I’m wrong- but I believe that my actions might be described as a ‘power move.’ Is that right?”  


At this point, Crowley well and truly lost it. He dissolved into a fit of giggles, which evolved shamelessly into full-on belly laughter. “Yes, angel,” managed Crowley, wiping tears from his eyes. “Yes, I think choosing to excise yourself from the Divine in order to retire in comfort with your demon lover- to whose home, incidentally, you were so desperate to return that you _willed an outpost of Hell_ into existence on his roof- and then arriving upon said demon lover’s proverbial doorstep in a blaze of infernal glory does, in fact, constitute a power move.”  


Aziraphale gave a delighted, self-satisfied wiggle. “Oh, good. What is it you always say ‘Do it with style?’”  


“Yeah, angel,” Crowley murmured, voice husky with affection and laughter. “You did, at that. Welcome to damnation, by the way. Pay’s abysmal, but the benefits are something else.” He settled himself back on the bed, facing Aziraphale.  


“Thank you, my love. I suspect I got the best reception a demon could ask for.” Aziraphale reached out a hand and laid it across Crowley’s. “I look forward to being damned with you. Although,” he sighed. “I don’t imagine I shall look too fetching in black.”  


“So keep the white. No reason not to.”  


“Oh, I imagine it would clash with the wings. Black wings, beige jacket. A touch dreary, I should think.”  


“You want to wear them black?,” Crowley sniffed incredulously. “Angel, I’m flattered, but we’ve never been a matched set. No reason to start now.”  


“What do you mean? Won’t they just...be...black?”  


“’S not a uniform, Aziraphale. You can wear them however you want. Keep the white, if it’s to your liking. Shop around. Hell has bigger fish to fry.”  


“Oh.” Aziraphale’s voice was small. “Mine were always just white. It never occurred to me to change them.”  


“Not sure you could have, before.”  


“Oh?”  


“Well, it’s a metaphor, innit?” Crowley frowned, then gestured toward the ceiling. “That whole lot, they’re toeing a line, doing what they’re told, all rank and file. The other crowd, they do whatever they please. Stand out as much as you like, with them, but be prepared to back it up. You see all sorts of wings, down there. Black, grey, white, sometimes. Some color here and there- red's pretty common. Bat wings were really popular for a bit. Beelzebub has insect wings. Dagon’s are made of carbon paper. I just picked black cause it’s simple. Makes a statement. Classic. So keep the white, if you want.”  


Aziraphale gaped at him, internalizing this new information.  


“You know, I rather find I don’t.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooooo….I don't love this chapter, but it had to go up. Apologies for the delay. 
> 
> You can shout at me on tumblr (https://www.tumblr.com/blog/shoelesswanderer). Camp in my inbox! Bother me! Flail a bit!


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Whoops! Hey y'all- the upside of social distancing is that I have time to write again!

Over the next days, Aziraphale recovered slowly, but surely. That evening he was able to stand under his own power and struggled they few steps from the bed to the armchair, where he sat, restlessly dozing, until Crowley prevailed upon him to go back to the bed.  


The next morning, with Crowley's help, he limped into the kitchen to drink his tea there, and found a box of scones waiting for him. That afternoon was spent in bed, the short journey having exhausted him.  


When they woke the following morning, Aziraphale insisted he could walk to the kitchen by himself and make his own tea. He did, and despite the nap afterward, managed to walk back into the kitchen in order to eat dinner. The two of them stayed up late, talking and drinking, Crowley raucous and gleeful with relief, Aziraphale feeling lighter and more comfortable than he knew was possible.  


Something was missing, though.  


The two of them retired together, Aziraphale taking Crowley by the hand and leading him to the bedroom. He turned at the foot of the bed and pressed a kiss to Crowley's mouth. Crowley responded gently. Kindly. There was no heat in his gaze when they separated, no urgency in his breath, nothing but chaste, patient care in the firm presence of Crowley's hands at his waist.  


"Sleep, angel," he murmured against Aziraphale's hair. "Yeah?"

They next day, they sat on the bed together, Crowley sowing discord from the comfort of his home and Aziraphale staring at the same page to which he had opened his book half an hour ago. He frowned, the evening before weighing on him. “Crowley,” started Aziraphale. “Do you still love me?”  


Crowley looked up immediately, forgoing a poorly-moderated website. “Yes,” he answered, without hesitation. “Why-” But he answered his own question, cooing in recognition of the pained relief that had written itself across Aziraphale’s face. “You can’t feel it anymore, can you?”  


He shook his head and pressed a hand against his breastbone. “I had hoped that was the problem, of course, but...” Aziraphale trailed off, ducking his head in something like shame.  


Crowley opened his mouth and closed it again. “Did you know stars make noise?” he asked suddenly, voice tight. He reached for Aziraphale’s hand and stared resolutely at where the two of them touched.  


Aziraphale, puzzled and a bit put out by the non-sequitur, frowned. “I didn’t, but I suppose that makes sense. All that...chemistry,” he gestured vaguely with his free hand, voice dubious. “You know. The...burning? Probably lots of ...whooshing?”  


A laugh cracked itself out of Crowley’s mouth, and Aziraphale stopped babbling. “No, angel. They...they hum, I guess. Or whistle. Got a couple of em to chime, even. Depends on what you make them out of.”  


Crowley’s voice was quiet, sharp and clear as a shattered glass. “And, y’know. They move. Spin, or orbit, or there’s planets or comets or whatever. And that makes em sound different. Changes the....the pitch? I guess? That was how I decided where to put them. How they sounded. Different, depending on where you were. I never...I don’t know how they sound from Earth. Haven’t heard em since I Fell.”  


He took a deep breath and met Aziraphale’s eyes. “That part doesn’t get better. That still hurts, after all this time. I never finished my songs.”  


Azirphale squeezed the hand of the man he loved, watched as sorrow and loss chased each other across his face. “I’m so sorry you lost that, my darling.”  


“That was taken from me, angel. I didn’t get a choice.” He blinked and shook his head. “Not the point. The point is I know they’re still singing. I can’t hear em. Not sure anyone else can either, not anymore. But that doesn’t mean the songs aren’t there. I just...take it on faith.”  


“I didn’t think that was a skill you had ever developed, Crowley.”  


“Yeah, well. Don’t tell anybody. It’s my best-kept secret.”  


And then, quite suddenly, it was unconscionable how sad Crowley was.  


Aziraphale reached out to him, mindful of still-healing blisters and the pain in his back, and stroked Crowley’s hair back from his face. “Am I meant to take it on faith that you still love me?”  


Crowley looked at him, stricken and helpless, clearly at a loss. “Angel, this isn’t- this hasn’t changed anything. I’m still...lost, when I look at you. Completely gone. I would Fall a dozen times if it meant I got to hold your hand afterward. You have to know that. Nothing in Anyone’s power could change the way I feel about you.”  


Aziraphale leaned forward slowly, just barely pressing his mouth to Crowley’s. “Show me?”  


Crowley smiled against his mouth and whispered, “Bastard.”  


“Demon, remember?” returned Aziraphale, with a grin of his own.  


They made cautious, tentative love that afternoon, Crowley staring up unblinking as Aziraphale reminded himself how their bodies fit together. He was slow and relentless above Crowley, riding him gentle and insistent. Crowley stroked delicate, deliberate touches across his ample thighs and stomach, until Aziraphale guided his hand to grip and stroke in time with his movement.  


Aziraphale watched joy and love and wonder play across Crowley’s face as climbed toward his own climax, unable to sense the love the demon felt for him, but seeing the evidence writ large before him. He took Crowley’s other hand in his own, lacing their fingers together. His lover gazed up at him, jaw falling slack as Aziraphale increased his pace, long fingers gripping his broad hand tightly as he tipped Crowley over the edge and, once again, dove after him.  


Lightning did not strike. The earth was not rent asunder, and as Crowley fell boneless back against the bed, with Aziraphale not far behind, there was no smell of brimstone or ozone or ichor. Two demons lay side by side, sleepy and sated and in love, and the world kept moving.  


Crowley shivered and stretched, bringing his wings into the world. He laid one across the bed, covering himself and Aziraphale, a sky that was dark and free of stars. Aziraphale reached out and touched his cheek. “I believe that I am going to be alright, with you to show me how.”  


“Always, angel. Of course, always.”  


“Thank you, my love.” He turned his head and stroked a gentle finger along one of Crowley’s feathers. Crowley purred. “Have yours always been black?” he asked.  


“Black as my coffee, angel.”  


“Less sweet, I should imagine.”  


Crowley pulled a face, but made no other protest. “Decided on a color for yours yet? Or at least a few you want to try on?”  


Aziraphale closed his eyes and rolled his shoulders gently, wincing slightly as his wings reentered the world for the first time since he had left Heaven. They were bright white and slender, with a deep black border along the bottom edge.  


Crowley looked at them and grinned. “A sacred ibis, angel? Interesting choice.”  


“Hm. I was hoping for 'Why yes, Aziraphale, what a lovely unification of aesthetic and mythopoetic symbolism,' but I will accept ‘interesting’ for the time being.”  


“They suit you, Aziraphale.”  


“I certainly agree.”


End file.
